A driver assist system (“DAS”) for vehicles is known. One type of vehicle DAS uses a forward facing camera. The camera is mounted in a housing that is secured to the front windshield of the vehicle to provide a forward looking field of view in front of the vehicle. Such forward facing vehicle DAS arrangements monitor the vehicle's forward operating environment and provide other vehicle systems with the monitored environment information to aid in a safer operation of the vehicle. For example, the vehicle DAS can monitor lane departure, assist in maintaining a vehicle in a road lane, provide lane centering/guidance, control operation of the high and/or low beam headlights, detect vehicle presence, provide forward crash warning, perform sign recognition, and/or apply automatic emergency braking in response to the detection of a pedestrian.
A vehicle DAS controller is connected to an output of the camera and analyzes the images output data from the camera. Sunlight, high beam headlights, and/or other external light sources can cause degradation of the camera image in regard to contrast and quality. To ensure that the camera of the vehicle DAS accurately perceives the environment within its field of view, it is desirable to reduce glare caused by sunlight or other external light sources that could affect the camera image, which may result in an improper image analysis. One proposal for glare reduction involves the use of low gloss paint or low gloss material. However, it is desired to provide a more cost effective solution.